he shook Mrs. Lyndsay kindly by the
hand, and wishing her and her _gudeman_ a prosperous voyage, vanished up
the companion-ladder.

Old Boreas shook his fist after his retreating figure. "You d----d,
insignificant, snuffy little coxcomb! I'm a d----d sight better doctor
than you are. If the Government sends you again, poking your long nose
among my people, I'll make a surgical case for you to examine at home at
your leisure, I will."

In order to divert his ill-humour, Flora inquired at what hour the ship
sailed?

"She must wait for that which never yet waited for mortal man--wind and
tide. It will be midnight before we get under weigh."

Boreas always spoke in short sentences. He was a man of few words,
rough, ready, and eccentrically blunt. Had his talents been proportioned
to his obstinacy of will, he might have ruled over large communities,
instead of acting the petty tyrant on the deck of his small craft. Right
or wrong, he never gave up his opinion to any one. He certainly did not
belong to the "_Ay, Sir--very true, Sir_"--school of individuals, who
would resign their own souls to agree with their superiors in rank or
power. If there was a being on earth that he despised more than
another, it was a sneak. On one occasion, when a steerage passenger, in
order to curry favour, was prostrating himself before him after this
fashion, assuring the Captain, "That _his_ thoughts coincided _exactly_
with his own," he burst out in a towering passion, "D---- you Sir!
haven't you got an opinion of your own? I don't want such a sneaking
puppy as you to think my thoughts, and echo my words. I should despise
myself, if I thought it possible that we could agree on any subject."

If really convinced that he was wrong, he would show it by a slight
diminution of his ferocious stubbornness; but would never acknowledge it
in words. If he gained even a doubtful advantage over an adversary, he
rubbed his hands, clapped his knees, and chuckled and growled out his
satisfaction, in a manner peculiarly his own. He was only tolerable as a
companion after taking his third glass of brandy-and-water; and as he
commenced these humanizing doses by daybreak in the morning, repeating
them at stated intervals during the four-and-twenty hours, by noon he
became sociable and entertaining; and would descend from his
anti-meridian dignity, and condescend to laugh and chat in a dry
humorous style, which, if it lacked refinement, was highly amusing.